stringing your pearls along

i watched you
carefully drill needles
through a hundred pearls
and then string them together
one at a time.

it took you nearly forty five minutes
to tie the knot

and then you ran the string
around your face
your neck

each nipple
separately

then, as if it were wrong
you rolled the pearls along your stomach
and down to your clitoris

where they swirled and whirled
while time stopped

you shuddered sometime between an hour
and a year later
and then
for the first time i remember
you smiled.